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January 2, 2017

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Blogging (Part 4)

I should probably start off this post by making
something very clear. There are tons of
factors that decide whether a story -- a game, a movie, a book, a TV show, or
whatever -- is good. Even if that’s
true, I think we can all agree that characters make up a good chunk of those
factors. As I’ve said, characters create
opportunities; if they’re engaging, then they can take an audience to some
incredible highs. If they’re bad, then
it’s the equivalent of jamming Mount Olympus into your eyeball.

It’s pretty easy to throw around the claim that
“characters should be likable”. And
yeah, that’s a big part of it. But let’s
not get bogged down by strict definitions; “likable” doesn’t have to mean that
the character is an admirable, noble member of society. He or she doesn’t have to be a bang-up hero,
because otherwise we would ignore villains by default. It’s about making sure that, by writing
and/or design, there’s something compelling about a character. That should be understood by everyone,
because it’s certainly something understood by JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and its creator, Hirohiko Araki.

So now that I’ve said all that, let me make a
claim about Battle Tendency. A huge chunk of the named characters are
assholes. And that’s awesome.

Your next line is…

What? You didn’t tell
me there were SPOILERS in this post!

…Except I kind of did.
I lead in with this red text for a reason, people.

Part 4: Battle
Tendency (again)

(Or: No
Shirt, No Shoes, MANSERVICE -- B Side)

So in
the last post, I said that they key thematic heft behind Part 2 of the
series is respect. Of course, if you read the paragraphs above
this one, you’d say that I’m crazy (or crazier than usual) for saying as
much. A terrible person is a terrible
person, and hardly someone worthy of respect.
Why would anyone choose to show any amount of adoration or approval to a
person -- fictional or not -- that goes out of their way to make life harder on
others? It’s counterintuitive.

Yet there are countless cries online that “Joseph
is best JoJo”. And compared to the
gentlemanly Jonathan -- his direct grandfather -- Joseph is anything but a
gentleman. He’s got a bad temper. He’s petty.
He’s prone to bouts of jealousy.
He’s willing to creep on ladies when he knows he won’t get caught. He skips school. He leaves normal dudes as bloody heaps on the
street. He’s reckless enough to empty out
a tommy gun by firing into a packed restaurant.
His core gimmick is trolling his foes by saying their next line before
they do. At a base level, he comes off
as the most obnoxious person on the east coast -- and of an entire decade,
while we’re at it.

Even if that’s true, it’s not as if Joseph is
irredeemable. He’s the story’s hero for
a reason, one that goes beyond “that bloody destiny” or “da plot”. He’s got heroic qualities, like refusing to
stand idly by when a woman’s life is on the line. Rough around the edges as he may be, he’s
still fiercely loyal to his friends and family (including his grandma Erina and
his more-or-less grandfather Speedwagon).
And as you can guess from the video above, his greatest weapon is his
cunning and trickery. On-the-fly
strategies are woven into JoJo’s lifeblood
more than the eclectic poses -- and that’s saying something -- but Joseph’s the
one who codified their presence. It’s
more than a little welcome, to say the least.

But let’s back up to that second point. In a shonen production, it’s all too common
for the lead to care about his pals, and go berserk whenever they’re in
danger. That’s not to the demographics’
detriment, even if it was played out back in the eighties. Joseph loves his grandma, and he’ll do what
he can to make her happy. Likewise, he
goes off the rails once he finds out (however untrue) that Speedwagon was
killed via betrayal. He has a personal
web, and a personal code of honor to match -- small in spread, but harder than
steel. As the story progresses, that web
gets wider and wider.

So here’s the clincher, and likely the reason why
people prefer Joseph to, say, Jonathan (and Jotaro, I’d bet). Of those three JoJos, Joseph has the most
obvious, most defined arc.

As much as I love Jonathan, his progression as a
character is easy to shrug off because A) he’s already close to being saintly so
he’s got no vices to overcome, and B) he goes through muted, negative character
development by way of his blooming hatred of Dio. Jotaro is…well, he’s muted in a LOT of ways,
but I’ll get to him eventually. In any
case, people have come to expect character arcs that take a guy or lady with
problems and foibles, and then have them rise above their issues via the trials
of the plot. The coward learns to have
courage. The loner learns about the
power of friendship. The selfish jerk
learns to care about something besides him.

Joseph, I think, falls into that third general
category. There’s no doubt that he’d
rush to the rescue of Erina got kidnapped, because she’s metaphorically within
arm’s reach of him. And yes, he’d save
strangers who are suffering within his line of sight. The issue is that outside of that, I’d argue
that Joseph doesn’t have respect for anyone too far outside his personal
web. The sparks fly -- literally -- when
he meets fellow Hamon user Caesar Zeppelli; you’d think that they’d learn to
bond with one another instantly thanks to their unique powers and heroic
lineage, but NOPE! Joseph’s gotta try to
knock Caesar down a peg just because he’s wooing a pretty girl.

Then he meets Lisa Lisa, the person who’s primed
to help him learn how to use his Hamon effectively…and he spends most of those
early moments looking down on her, raging at her, and aiming to exact his
revenge once he wraps up his hellish training.
(And he goes on to peep on her in the bathtub, which is likely a move he’s
destined to regret.) He doesn’t seem
to think too highly of his opponents at first, either; yeah, he’s itching to
beat them up and save the innocent, but he tries to go on the attack with a
technique he isn’t even sure will work, just
to try and one-up Caesar for his special
technique. Unsurprisingly, New York’s
JoJo nearly experiences death by tornado.

Respect isn’t something that Joseph is eager to
give out. While it’s true that respect
is something that you’ve got to earn, the fact that he’s so willing to trash
talk, mess with, and shrug off anyone outside of his comfort zone says a lot
about his character. On the other hand,
it gives him something to prove that he’s progressing as a character. Joseph starts out with an antagonistic
relationship with Caesar, but after experiencing some nightmarish Hamon trials
(where the two of them mutually assist one another), they come to understand
and even like one another. Likewise,
Lisa Lisa becomes more than just someone to ogle; she becomes a pillar of
strength, solidarity, and serenity -- albeit one with a genuine human side underneath
her façade. Speaking of pillars, Joseph
starts to see guys like Wamuu and Esidisi in a different light by clashing with
them. Even if they’re enemies, he learns
to appreciate their pride, honor, and nobility -- their decorum as ancient
warriors that inspires him to be more than just a street thug with some good
connections.

So I guess I should clarify something. You can pare down Battle Tendency to the theme of “respect”, but if you wanted to
expand it? I’d say it goes something
like “Hey, you’re an asshole, but you’re still a pretty cool guy I can’t help
but like.” I mean, this part even has
Nazis that Joseph comes hairs away from befriending.

Let’s be clear: Joseph is bad at giving respect
where it’s due, but a lot of the other characters don’t make it easy on
him. Caesar starts out thinking of
Joseph as a country bumpkin and a total load.
Lisa Lisa is standoffish to the point of something very near
prejudice. The Pillar Men laugh at our
heroes before walking off, with a trail of bodies in their wake. Stroheim made it much easier for Santana to
run amok, primarily so he could give Germany an edge on the battlefield. These guys aren’t going to be nominated for
any superlatives in their high school yearbooks, that’s for sure.

First impressions all around are less than ideal,
but as these warriors -- of Hamon, of the Pillar, and beyond -- spend time with
one another, they learn that there’s plenty to like. Joseph is on the wrong side of the Pillar Men
and their dark ambition, but when it comes down to fighting them one on one
(because of course they do), New York’s JoJo learns firsthand that they’re
proud, honorable warriors with immense skill as well as intelligence. Through the battlefield, they come to
understand one another; that goes both ways, because the guy that the baddies
once saw as a buffoon redeems himself well before the last crackle of Hamon
echoes.

In that sense, there’s an obvious advantage Part 2
has over Part 1. It’s not just Joseph
that changes over the course of the story.
Granted how much any given viewer will think they transform will vary, but the shifts are there. Even if they aren’t, there’s still plenty to
take away from the bond between Joseph and Caesar -- who in the intro remind me
of Billy and Jimmy Lee whenever they’re locking limbs.

Joseph and Caesar start off as bitter rivals --
the slob versus the snob, relatively speaking.
Under normal circumstances, they probably would’ve fought until the
blood went flying; with the Pillar Men on the rise and the importance of
furthering their Hamon training, they’re forced to work together to beat their
ancient foes. Technically they put aside
their differences, but character-wise they go extremely well together. I liken it to that movie Blades of Glory; Joseph’s a showman who (tricks aside) goes in guns
blazing and improvises on the fly.
Caesar’s a technician with knowledge and skill (and skills) in the field. In the
end, though, they’ve got lots in common where it counts. But by seeing one another struggle -- with
the murderous superhumans, with rigorous training, with the swath of
destruction, and with the legacy of their bloody destiny -- they learn to see
past more than themselves, and their preconceived notions.

Tragically, their arcs don’t progress far enough
to prevent a terrible fate. To
reiterate, Joseph is the grandson of Jonathan Joestar, the hero of Part 1. Caesar is the grandson of Will A. Zeppelli,
the mentor of Part 1; notably,
Jonathan’s victory wouldn’t have been possible if Will hadn’t sacrificed
himself and given the gentleman a power boost.
It’s no stretch to assume that his late grandfather is a touchy subject
for Caesar, largely because of the respect he has for his family as a
whole. Joseph, on the other hand, was
locked out of the loop. He doesn’t know
jack about Jonathan, his direct father, or the battle with Dio in the 1880s. So at one point, Caesar basically says “I
have to do this, for my bloodline!” Then
Joseph basically says “Bloodline? Who
cares about that?” He, uh, shouldn’t
have done that.

In hindsight, Caesar’s death was probably
super-preventable. Joseph didn’t make
things better by egging him on (however unintentionally), but Caesar gave into
his anger at a time when the hot-blooded one of the team was saying “Hey, we
need to think this through first.”
Rushing in with only the vaguest traces of a plan didn’t stop Caesar
from coming within seconds of taking out Wamuu, but the fact that he went in
alone to defend his family’s honor meant that he didn’t have a cushion or
backup plan just in case things went
south. In that sense, Caesar’s
overabundance of respect led to his downfall, while Joseph’s lack of respect
(at that point, at least) saved his life.

It kind of leads to an interesting dilemma,
doesn’t it? Does one character have to
sacrifice his life just to give the
hero -- an owner of the Joestar bloodline -- a chance to win? It’s a bit troubling to think that the lead
can’t accomplish much (or at least make it to the finish line) without somebody
throwing down his or her body as an impromptu stair step. On the other hand, it could be a thematic
thing; maybe the Joestar curse is one that puts each successive heir in a position
where loneliness is their default setting.
Speedwagon and Erina aside (and Smokey, albeit incidentally), Joseph
starts out a rebel without a cause. Then
he befriends Caesar, and then Caesar dies right when their bond has reached a
high point. Bitter stuff, that.

But I digress.
The important thing is that Caesar bites it in what I assume is one of
the most infamous moments in the entire franchise -- a golden moment for Joseph
to show just how much respect and love he has for his fallen friend. Respect alone isn’t enough to bring Caesar
back, but it does give him the spark to fight harder and grow stronger where it
counts…even if tears had to be shed.

In any case, I’m inclined to believe that the
theme of respect -- its pros and cons -- isn’t just something I gleaned from
reading way too far into the series.
Whereas most characters gain respect (and Joseph himself earns it from
those who would rightfully write him off), main villain Kars either refuses it
or loses it as the story progresses.
It’s to be expected, of course; Kars is an asshole and the shit king of
the Pillar Men as a result. It was
basically his idea and ambition to evolve past his already sky-scraping limits,
so anyone who stands in his way is up for a sweet taste of his homemade murder.
But even if the Pillar Men are bad guys, there are still things that
make them sort of admirable.

Esidisi and Wamuu prove that they’ve got noble
spirits -- a code of honor, a willingness to observe rules/tradition/fair play,
and ultimately, the chance to see more than just whatever props up their
egos. Kars…well, Kars doesn’t. He’s willing to launch a sneak attack on Lisa
Lisa to immediately end their “honorable” duel.
Combining the Stone Mask and the Red Stone of Aja doesn’t come down to
him winning it fairly; he basically pulls a fast one to cheat his way into
ultimate life. He’s willing to badmouth
his men not even 12 hours after they bite it, and revels in the fact that only
he gets to be the ultimate life-form.

I mean, seriously.
Dio may be a son of a bitch, but Kars is right up there with him -- a
guy you just love to hate.

I’m of two minds about Kars’ defeat. It’s not that it’s a bad way to finish him
off, even if it relies on a HUGE string of circumstances and lucky saves (which
to be sure is a standard of the franchise), but there are two ways of looking
at how it fits thematically. Kars ends
up getting blown into space to drift eternally, unable to return or use any of
his newfound superpowers to save his life -- and it reaches a point where he
just stops thinking. Prior to that,
though? He ends up in that situation
because Joseph -- with an assist from a volcano activated by Kars’ super-Hamon
and the Red Stone -- cons him into that position. Even though the Pillar Men boss could’ve
finished off our hero in any number of ways, he screwed up in the typical “Imma
gloat all over ya” fashion you’d expect from villains.

So because Kars lacks respect for Joseph -- the
guy who by that point had beaten three separate
Pillar Men almost singlehandedly, and very nearly killed Kars via plane
crash -- he thinks he can just waltz right up and go for a flashy finish. That’s one way of looking at it. Or, alternatively, you could argue that Kars
shows too much respect for Joseph and
seals his fate. He assumes that the
volcano eruption was part of Joseph’s scheme, and in the process is left wide
open for the rock pelting that sends him out of Earth’s loving embrace. It was only thanks to Joseph’s last-minute
will to survive that he made just the right move he needed, but Kars -- someone
with basic pattern recognition, at least -- thinks that he got conned. “Cheated” is more appropriate, but the end
result is the same. Kars is knocked right outta the park.

And thus, Battle
Tendency draws to a close -- well, after a “funeral” for Joseph despite him
being very much alive. How does it stack
up with Phantom Blood? I wouldn’t fault anyone for putting Part 2
above Part 1. This entry is certainly
doing more to offer up the laughs and absurdity, all in an effort to live up to
the “Bizarre” in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It does sort of lose a sense of that
theatrical bombast that I adored in Part 1, but I can’t say it’s a loss or a
detriment to this entry. Different in
this case doesn’t equal worse. It just
means that there was a different intention, and a drive to pursue a new style
of sorts.

In all honesty, my complaints about Part 2 are
pretty limited. There are issues, of
course. I wish Lisa Lisa had more to do
(and didn’t just smack around some goons before losing instantly to Kars). As you
can guess, there were times when I found myself going “Wait, what?” when
something absurd happened vis a vis Joseph’s fight for victory --
disbelief-straining stuff that made me go “There’s no way you could’ve thought
of that” or “You couldn’t have possibly set that up in the amount of time you
had”. But overall, I feel like I’ve been
rewarded for my time investment. As I
should. Part 1 still edges out Part 2
for me (personally speaking), but the gap between them is about as thick as the
average penny.

So now I have a question: is Hirohiko Araki a
genius? Ideally of the "evil" variety?

I don’t think the theme of respect here (and bonds
in Part 1) was an accident. There’s just
too much that feeds back into that single idea, directly or subtly. Mostly directly, because…well, look at what
anime we’re talking about, but you get the idea. Thought went into this, and we as viewers
have the chance to think in turn because of the level of execution. It’s not as if JoJo as a whole is extremely complex or pushing the boundaries of
literature, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do with gusto and skill.

That brings me to my next point. Again, JoJo’s
Bizarre Adventure is on its eighth part, and has been running for about 30
years. That’s a lot of ground that needs
to be covered, and a lot of content that needs to be produced. How do you stay consistent, entertaining, and
fresh enough to delight fans old and new?
One possible answer -- the answer proposed by JoJo itself -- is to constantly reinvent the metaphorical
wheel. Phantom Blood is its own beast; Battle
Tendency is another. The same
applies to each consecutive entry; they have commonalities and a central
affect, but the fact that they can be so
varied has to stand for something. Or to
put it in shade-throwing terms: how is it that stuff like Naruto or Bleach can
peter out in 15 years (if that) while JoJo
can stay strong for twice as long? I
guess the answer is that Araki knows what he’s doing -- an artist who has the
sense to write a good story.